Style musings between girlfriends

Soo Joo

I have a lot of feels for this piece of news: Soo Joo Park, one of the international fashion industry’s most stunning and versatile models, was just named L’Oreal’s first Asian American spokesperson. A beauty campaign for any model is highly coveted. But to become the first ever Asian face for a global beauty brand like L’Oreal? That’s massive.

As a person of colour, and an Asian one at that, this particular announcement hit home for me. I felt her pride personally. Racial diversity and equal representation of visible minorities are huge problems that plague not only the fashion industry, but also music, tech, film, television…the list goes on. Although things are changing, partly due to social media and growing awareness, the change comes slow and sometimes it even seems to regress. I’m willing to bet that things will remain this way until more and more people of colour are in positions of power, whether as designers, buyers, casting directors, or as CEOs. Big up to designers like Rick Owens, Azzedine Alaïa, Rag & Bone, and yes, Kanye West, who embrace models of colour time and time again. We need more who will treat diversity as the norm, rather than a smart PR move.